Sans AU One-Shots

❀Nightmare❀ || stress.

Pairing: Nightmare Sans x Female Reader
Prompt: You're getting crushed by the weight of expectations, too busy to have a free moment and too trapped in an impossible situation to allow yourself reprieve from the stress ruining your life. The negativity gets so bad even the King of Negativity can't stand it, so - despite having no experience in comfort - he decides to do something about it.
Type: smut
Length: 5.8k words
Background: You're a college student who works a job at the same time and lives under Nightmare's roof because of your sheer negativity (like his little at-home battery). Your background and past interactions with Night & his minions are kept intentionally vague to allow you to come to your own conclusions about how and why you're here (aka let you put yourself in Y/n's shoes a lil easier).
Notes: Requested by the lovely sighnerd | Obviously Nightmare loves negativity, and after checking out more of the Dreamtale lore, he would definitely encourage a situation like yours until you couldn't take it anymore and snapped. So I introduce the idea that your negativity has other effects on him (hehe, you'll see what I mean ;) ) to give him a solid reason to 'take care of' you <3

~-~-~-~

The second (Y/n) stepped into the castle, Nightmare knew. It was impossible not to – her negative signature was practically suffocating – and while he'd normally love it, it was starting to set him on edge. It was like being turned on for hours on end: at a certain point, it just gets painful. And she'd been like this for weeks, no end in sight as far as he was aware - though he didn't care to get invested in his minions' personal lives and his negativity battery was no exception. The whole reason for her inclusion in his castle, the reason he afforded a room to a human of all people, was because of her sheer negativity. It was swallowing her whole when he met her, and at all the power it lent him, he was happy to let the broke college kid stay with him.

Well, he was, but now it was just getting tedious. (Y/n) never once complained about the distance to the college campus, or that she hardly ever got to sleep – busy jumping from college to work with barely a second in between for anything but her mandatory tasks like homework – and while he didn't care to hear her complaints, it also aided in her ever mounting ball of stress, anxiety, and angst. And keeping it all inside wasn't helping anyone anymore.

Nightmare appeared in the shadows behind (Y/n), watching her rifle through her backpack in search of something as she muttered to herself. As he expected, the wave of negativity was overwhelming, crackling in the air as something akin to dark fog surrounded her, weighing on her shoulders and making her physically slump from the strain. One hand was by her mouth, where she bit and tore off a nail as her flighty eyes switched from the time back to her bag. She almost mindlessly chewed on her nails before she abruptly yanked her hand away, a spike of pain shooting through her as red liquid slowly outlined the nail bed. She released a heavy breath that seemed to deflate her already shrunken form, and after finding what she was looking for, she pulled her laptop from her bag and set it up, clicking through it to find something.

Her whole body was vibrating from stress, like she couldn't sit still even if she tried, and that's when Nightmare stepped out of the shadows. "Human." She jolted, her whole body tensing up with every muscle wound tight like a spring. "What is going on?"

"Nothing!" The word flew out so fast it might as well have been in flashing lights she was lying, and his socket narrowed as he stepped closer. Immediately she folded, picking at her nails while she avoided his gaze. "I'm just a little stressed. I've got a project I need to do, but I got busy with other finals, and I haven't been sleeping well so I'm tired, and work needed me to come in so I did – we're short on people and I need the money." She sent him a small smile, which he met with a customarily displeased expression. "But now I'm behind, and I thought I'd have time to work on it but I didn't, and now it's due tomorrow at the start of class and I don't know where to begin and-" She picked off a piece of her last remaining good nail, the rest gnawed back to the nub, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she shifted uneasily in her chair. "I'm fine. I'm sorry if I'm distracting you or something, I don't mean to-"